French Literature

Gaston Bachelard (1884-1962) was born into a family of shoemakers and worked his way up from mail carrier to philosopher. He earned his Doctor of Letters from the Sorbonne in 1927, originally studying the intersection of science and philosophy. Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space attracts readers of all types, including architects, poets, and other creative people. The Poetics of Space represents his journey into the philosophy of the imagination. Bachelard published The Poetics of Space... Read The Poetics of Space Summary

... Read The Postcard Summary

Madame de Lafayette published The Princesse de Clèves anonymously in 1678. She was acquainted with the manners of Louis XIV’s court, and she drew upon her court experiences when writing the book, adding to the book’s historical fidelity. It was a great success upon its publication. As Robin Buss (whose Penguin Classics translation provides the source for this summary) writes in her Chronology of Mme de Lafayette’s life, The Princess de Clèves started fierce speculation... Read The Princesse de Clèves (The Princess of Cleves) Summary

W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) wrote The Razor’s Edge in 1944. The novel’s title comes from a quotation translated from the Katha Upanishad, with the assistance of Christopher Isherwood: “Rise, wake up, seek the wise and realize. The path is difficult to cross like the sharpened edge of the razor." The story has been adapted for film twice, once in 1946 starring Tyrone Power and again in 1984 with Bill Murray. When World War I air... Read The Razor's Edge Summary

... Read The Rebel Summary

In The Return of Martin Guerre, Natalie Zemon Davis, historian and professor at Princeton University, reconstructs the sixteenth century legend of Martin Guerre, a man with a wooden leg who arrived to a courthouse in Toulouse just in time to denounce an imposter who had stolen his wife, his family, and his inheritance. Arnaud du Tilh, a clever and persuasive peasant with a somewhat sordid past, had indeed taken Martin’s identity, and he nearly escaped... Read The Return of Martin Guerre Summary

The Romance of the Rose, or Roman de la Rose in the original French, is an allegorical poem written between the years 1225 and 1278 by two authors, Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun. De Lorris wrote the first three chapters of the work from 1225-1230, and de Meun added nine additional chapters from approximately 1269-1278. Not much is known about either author, but the poem became a foundational piece of medieval literature, particularly... Read The Romance of the Rose Summary

The Room on Rue Amélie (2018) is a historical fiction novel by American author Kristin Harmel. The novel follows the experiences of Ruby Henderson, an American immigrant in Paris, during World War II. Ruby eventually becomes involved in the French Resistance and forms a close friendship with Charlotte, whose Jewish identity leaves her vulnerable to persecution. Both women navigate the risks of resistance and the nature of love in a time of war. The novel... Read The Room on Rue Amélie Summary

... Read The Sand Child Summary

Published in 1905, The Scarlet Pimpernel, by Baroness Emma Orczy, is a historical romance adventure novel about a wealthy English baronet with a secret life as a hero who rescues the innocent from the French Reign of Terror. Told mainly from the viewpoint of his wife, the book—based on the successful London play of the same name—birthed a series of Scarlet Pimpernel novels, movies, and TV productions. It ushered in the secret-identity genre of adventure... Read The Scarlet Pimpernel Summary

The Social Contract is a political treatise published in 1762 by the Genevan philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau argues about the best ways to establish and maintain political authority without unduly sacrificing personal liberty. He builds off 17th-century philosopher Thomas Hobbes’s idea of the “social contract” between the people and sovereign authority, departing from Hobbes in his views on monarchy and the natural state of humankind. The Social Contract was enormously influential on political thought before... Read The Social Contract Summary

Guy Debord’s 1967 philosophy text, The Society of the Spectacle, analyzes the phenomena of alienation and argues that alienation’s root cause is located within the economic, political, and cultural spheres of modern society. While previous periods of capitalist development saw the hyper-exploitation of workers, the period of capitalism after WWII saw an improvement in labor conditions for greater numbers of workers in society. However, for Debord, this improvement in work conditions did not translate to... Read The Society of the Spectacle Summary

Composed at the turn of the 12th century, La Chanson de Roland (translated as The Song of Roland) recounts the events surrounding the Battle of Roncevaux Pass in 778 CE. The Song of Roland is likely the oldest surviving poem in French and was immensely popular across Europe during the Middle Ages. The poem establishes many tropes and themes that have come to characterize medieval chivalric romances, but Roland is also an epic poem in... Read The Song of Roland Summary

... Read The Spirit of Laws Summary

The Stranger is a short novel by French author Albert Camus, published in 1942. The story combines themes of absurdism and existentialism and is considered a classic of 20th-century literature. This guide uses the translation by Stuart Gilbert.Plot SummaryMeursault, a young man living in Algiers, receives a message which tells him that his mother has died. He takes a bus to the retirement home where she lived and stays with her body before the funeral... Read The Stranger Summary

... Read The Sweetness of Forgetting Summary

The Three Musketeers (1844), by French novelist and playwright Alexandre Dumas, is a novel that borrows tropes from the swashbuckling genre, historical fiction, and romance to recount the adventures of a group of king’s guard who face off against the machinations of nefarious political factions set on destabilizing the monarchy. It was first published through serialization in 1844 to great popularity. Though set in the mid-1600s, the novel connected with the philosophical underpinnings of the... Read The Three Musketeers Summary

... Read The Winemaker's Wife Summary

... Read The Women of Chateau Lafayette Summary

... Read This Strange Eventful History Summary